Jazz in Paris

by Jerry Coe
November 23rd, 2009

The Musee de la Musique in Paris is currently staging We Want Miles, an exhibition paying homage to the legendary, cool and blue jazz trumpeter, Miles Davis.

Davis spent some time in post-war Paris, along with numerous other musicians and performers, first visiting 60 years ago in 1949. Whilst there, he had an affair there with the chanteuse Juliet Greco. To figures like Davis, French culture was appealing, the racism in America appalling – and so Paris became something of a haven for jazz artists, literary hobos and cultural bohos.

The exhibition (on until January 17th 2010) reminded me of a superb jazz painting (see right) by Johnny Bull, featuring Miles Davis with Juliet Greco – she’s the tiny figure seated at a café table.

Johnny (born in the same year that Miles was exchanging cultural influences with Greco!) is the same artist who’s brought a brilliant, witty edge to the illustrations in the Speak the Culture books. His jazz paintings were in the ‘Johnny Loves Jazz’ phase.